ENERGY USE IN THE PRODUCTION AND HOUSING OF POULTRY AND SWINE – AN OVERVIEW

Abstract

An overview of energy use in agricultural food systems indicates that, unlike crop production, pork and poultry production will always be an energy sink rather than an energy source. Nevertheless, much more energy is involved in the food system beyond the farm gate than that used in production on the farm. Energy is used in the confinement rearing of swine and poultry for barn heating, ventilation, lights, and feed, water and manure handling. Information on how much energy is used, and on the relative amounts of energy used for each purpose, is far from complete and the differences between production units are large. There are opportunities for energy conservation but these are different for each production stage and for each animal species. Although the list of potential energy conservation opportunities is long, only a few are routinely implemented on even modern, well-managed farms. In many cases, the technical feasibility of energy conservation alternatives is well established, but the economic feasibility cannot be predicted because of missing information on animal-environment interactions. Key words: Energy, animal environments, housing